John Sheridan was troubled by a report criticizing the hospital on the day he died, witnesses say, but family members say work woes wouldn’t have spurred the CEO of the Cooper University Health System to commit murder-suicide.

John Sheridan, then-CEO of the Cooper Health System, died with his wife in September.

The deaths of Cooper CEO John Sheridan and his wife, Joyce, has been ruled a murder suicide, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Prior to his death, John Cooper had led the Camden-based Cooper Health System.

Further details were not immediately available.

But that ruling by the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey may not be the final word in the matter. The Inquirer also reports also that the couple’s sons are disputing the findings, as well as aspects of the investigation that led to today’s conclusion.

“The disagreement between the Sheridans’ sons – Mark, Matt, Dan, and Tim – and investigators has centered on whether John Sheridan killed Joyce and then himself, as authorities have long suspected, or whether their deaths were a double-murder by a third party, as the family believes,” the Inquirer reports. The family says “investigators did not process doors to the house for fingerprints and ‘left weapons at the scene for more than a month’ – specifically a fire poker in the couple’s bedroom.”

The Sheridans were found in September by firefighters responding to a blaze at their home. Since the, the case has trickled out in series of details without investigators announcing any firm conclusions until today. The family in November hired its own pathologist to investigate and monitor the official investigation.

New Jersey’s ranking, though, appears to be based mostly on the diffuse membership of the AC Skins, a “racist skinhead” group: SPLC says the group has chapters in 14 cities across the state, accounting for about a third of the total 40 groups said to be based there. Read more »

Gabby Giffords, the former U.S. congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt despite traumatic head wounds, will be in New Jersey today to lobby for tougher gun laws in that state.

Her appearance today is part of a broader two-day swing through Eastern states to encourage action by state legislatures. “If Congress won’t act, then maybe leaders in the states will,” she said in a Tuesday Facebook post. Read more »

Last week, we told you about Chris Christie’s $225 deal with Exxon to settle a pollution case in which the energy company was accused of doing nearly $9 billion in pollution damage to the state’s wetlands, marshes, and meadows — a deal that even got Jon Stewart steamed.

Turns out he’s not alone.

The New Jersey Senate on Monday passed a resolution asking a judge to reject that settlement as “grossly inappropriate, improper, and inadequate.” Read more »

New Jersey and Pennsylvania have America’s most-underfunded public employee pension systems, says a new report from the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. In fact, the report suggests, the two states have fallen so short of making the annual required contributions to the funds that they’ve managed to separate themselves from the pack.

Political battles are being waged in both states over how best to deal with the underfunding — Chris Christie versus the teachers unions in New Jersey, while House Republicans in Pennsylvania say pension reform must be part of any budget deal with Gov. Tom Wolf — but the report traces the underfunding back to the flush days of the late 1990s. Read more »

In this Dec. 13, 2007 file photo, inmate Robert O. Marshall speaks to the Associated Press in a lawyers conference room at the maximum security New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, N.J. New Jersey’s Department of Corrections said Robert O. Marshall died Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015, at South Woods State Prison in southern New Jersey. He was 75. Marshall, a New Jersey insurance salesman, was convicted of plotting to kill his wife in a crime that inspired the bestselling book “Blind Faith” and a TV movie. (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)

Robert Marshall, the Toms River man who was convicted of killing his wife and became the subject of a book and TV movie about murder, has died in prison. He was 75.

Joe McGinnis wrote the book Blind Faith about the mystery surrounding Maria Marshall’s death. The book was turned into the 1990 NBC movie of the same name, with actor Robert Urich starring as Robert Marshall.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been targeted by a new federal probe, multiple outlets are reporting.

“Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as members of his administration, a man at the center of the investigation told ABC News. The U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey has interviewed former Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Bennett Barlyn, who claims he was fired because he objected to Christie officials dismissing indictments against political allies of the governor.”Read more »

Haddon Township School District isn’t necessarily againstPARCC, the highly controversial standardized education assessment that has been adopted by dozens of states nation-wide. But district officials are telling parents how their kids can get out of taking it. And parents opposed to the test are hailing it as a win.

In a letter dated January 26, 2015 (below), District Superintendent Dr. Nancy Ward outlined Haddon Township’s provisions for parents who wish their children to be exempt from the high-stakes exam, which has come under fire by education advocates in other states: Trisha Kocanda, a superintendent outside of Chicago, wrote an open letter on PARCC, which was later published in The Washington Post. In it, Kocanda said she was “wary. We are concerned about the amount of instructional time it will displace, the impact this will have on students, and the usefulness of the results.”